"...the hypothetical inside which I decided if it was real I couldn't respect Asmodeus, Most High." And here she'd thought they were just going to ignore that since it was obviously stupid.

"It is possible to present me with an alternate version of Asmodeus, such that I lift my head in contempt and say I would not serve such a god of Lawful Evil.  If He had been Zon-Kuthon, for example."

"The hypothetical Asmodeus who cares anything at all for torture even if it serves not one of His other ends, as if He had been a little like Zon-Kuthon but still had His other goals and natures, is not one I hold in contempt.  He would simply be paying costs now and then to have more torture happen, not on blind instinct torturing someone a little even if that ruined all His other goals.  That is how He is with respect to tyranny, slavery, compacts, pride, they are, from His perspective, what having plans is for."

"The issue here is that you did not think clearly inside your hypothetical and decided with worrying speed inside it that such an Asmodeus could not be good enough for you.  If you are that hasty in half-formed judgments I think you will end up too far from our Lord in spirit to present Him with an acceptable new Hell, and quite possibly fall into heresy at the level of outright disaster."

"You have flown very high and very far, and I think there is starting to be in you some of the recklessness that you saw in Asmodia.  Do you recall her remedy?"

That's fair. And it is comforting, in a way; that she is at risk of falling into disastrous heresy means that she hasn't, yet. 

"I slapped her, Most High. - but she's on the light punishment regimen."

"And then she assigned herself to read a book, and when that failed her, Asmodia asked Security to hold her down and set her hand on fire, and that remedy was seemingly effective."

"It reassured me to hear of it, that the chosen of tropes and other gods are not thereby rendered entirely non-Asmodeans."

"I think you will have an easier time of redesigning Hell if you learn anything about how to use pain.  Abrogail knows, the boy out of a Lawful Good world is learning swiftly, it is time for you to stop dawdling.  The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a first step, and assigning standard torture codes to Pilar is not that step."

"Consult with Subirachs and devise a punishment for yourself that you expect to restore your cautionary judgment about when to decide in your thoughts that Lord Asmodeus would be a fool.  If enduring that torment makes you weaker, if it fails and must be repeated stronger, you will have only yourself to blame for either end."

"Yes, Most High."

Aspexia Rugatonn rises, feeling older than her age, which is itself not negligible.  If that's not how to get a cleric of Irori to come closer to embracing Asmodeus's true ways, she doesn't know what would be; but at the same time, what an Abyss of a problem to even find yourself trying to solve.

"Go with Asmodeus, Chosen," she says, letting her real weariness into her voice, as she turns to go.  For Sevar surely is Chosen, probably of Irori, possibly of Asmodeus, definitely of the tropes, maybe all three.

She'll do her best!

Abrogail Thrune (having just departed her own meeting with Sevar) finds for herself an unremarkable room of Project Lawful.

The Queen then orders her most trusted Security on staff - one with a friendly and well-paid agreement with Abrogail Thrune to eventually let himself be made a statue until after the Queen's death, should the Queen's own end not come before his, because the Queen doesn't want some things spread about in Hell while she's alive - to tell Meritxell to come by for her terribly exciting secret meeting.

Meritxell, terribly excited, arrives. 

(She knows that probably the Queen's attention is a bad thing. However, Carissa Sevar has it, and Meritxell is a very competitive person.)

Abrogail Thrune approves of her attitude, in fact.  Meritxell is not quite Abrogail Thrune before she donned the Crown of Infernal Majesty, but she's surely closer than some.

"Rise."

"I overheard your thought before about wanting to be one of the interesting girls."

"I'd already planned to make a certain arrangement with you that will, I suppose, make you somewhat more interesting.  This will involve some nighttime Teleports to and from Egorian once your Ring of Sustenance kicks for you, and a license to commit what would be, for anyone but you, massive treason."

"But it is perhaps worth going to greater lengths than that, so long as we are about it.  You see, it occurs to me that it would perhaps be well to have one uncomplicated unheretical Asmodean not touched by any other gods among Keltham's romantic interests."

"I have no idea if we can make you interesting enough to qualify as a true romantic interest to Keltham, but I'm willing to try."

"Anything your heart might be set upon already?"

Meritxell is speechless for a moment, because of how she has just had all of her wildest dreams offered to her because of her uncomplicated unheretical Asmodeanness and desire to be interesting, which is - better than her wildest dreams. And she learned lucid dreaming so as to eventually be able to fuck with people in elaborate mindscapes and has some pretty weird dreams. 

"- I haven't given the question much thought," she says. The first thing that is coming to mind is 'being secretly part dragon' but she's pretty sure you can't suddenly become part dragon. "Or, actually - Keltham says he can't fall in love with me unless I enjoy it when he hurts me. Is that - can you -"

"It wouldn't be easy.  Scribe's Binding, maybe?  Miracle?  I'm not sure Asmodeus would be willing to grant any Miracles targeting someone who was clearly to return to this interdiction zone...  Keltham would ask questions.  I suppose it's not especially more likely to happen in the Conspiracy than in alterCheliax?  Well, except for the amount of government attention on the Project it implies, if you can have a ninth-circle scroll of extremely-alterCheliax-forbidden mind-control used on you... though, Keltham need not know that something quite so drastic was required, but then what if he asks for it to be used again..."

"To be clear, we are trying to do this without making Asmodia sad.  Alas.  There would be so many more exciting options if not for that."

"'I wrote to my cleric mother and she said she'd try to obtain some expensive secret things for me' will work on Keltham," says Meritxell determinedly rather than try to fathom the concept of using a Miracle on this, "Or we'll have to sort out whether we're allowed to talk to our parents and what they know, but we should sort that out anyway. We were planning to at some point make Keltham aware Scribe's Binding exists so he'll decide there's definitely not a conspiracy..." She is rambling. One should not ramble at the Queen. 

I don't think I have requests, other than that. What would you have of me?"

"Due time, Meritxell, due time.  You becoming a masochist, even if we could do that, would not itself make you more interesting than Yaisa, even if it was done in an interesting way."

"I do know a Baron with no heir, who owes me a rather severe favor, and for you to secretly be his heir..."

"Honestly, it strikes me as just too uncreative.  I feel there must be something better to do with your character.  But we can fall back on that if we lack better options."

"Gregoria's got that," says Meritxell with considerable irritation at Gregoria. " - I mean, she's not a Baron's heir but she's a Baron's heir's daughter and we can't have two, I would imagine, your Majesty." Her tone softening as she goes on with the sentence and remembers she is not remotely in a conversation with a classmate. "Long lost twin? No, that's boring too, and obviously tropey. Kidnapped by some foreign government that wants to learn the secrets of Project Lawful, and tortured horribly, but conveniently now I'm into that......Asmodia is absolutely going to veto that. Contacted by the agents of a foreign government who offered me wealth and power beyond my wildest dreams if I deliver them Keltham, or even his lecture notes, and like a responsible person I reported this immediately but I do want to see how much wealth and power beyond my wildest dreams I can squeeze out of them before they catch on."

"Perhaps alterCheliax is openly, deliberately making you more interesting, such as by appointing you para-Baroness, to test whether this causes you to have always matched one of Keltham's fetishes other than sadism..."

"Well, the problem there is, what if that works?  Though I don't expect it would be all that damning, by Keltham's rules, unless the quality is very rare and we can't pretend it's more common..."

"I don't suppose you have a conveniently long-held fantasy about some way you could become something greater than what you are now, quickly, if you had access to moderately vast resources to bring it about?"

"I sort of always figured I'd uncover a treacherous plot against the Crown and get an important appointment out of it and have an ominous laboratory that glows for no particular reason but all of that's objectively less interesting than Project Lawful. Maybe if it was a really good plot against the Crown." ....she could catch Carissa plotting against the crown, that'd be dramatically interesting, and Carissa'd get in trouble and Keltham would intervene and say she's his and Cheliax can't break his things and that'd be progress... that's an Ione or Asmodia plan, by which Meritxell means too clever by half. Meritxell is clever but not actually too clever by half.

"Mm.  Well, we both have some time to think about it."

"As to the purpose for which I initially selected you, the first step is for you to become exceptionally familiar with the sight of my naked body."

Meritxell blinks rapidly in confusion. 

(She's not actually particularly interested in women, not that she expects that to matter or cares very much about it herself.)

(....no, the reason for that request is impersonation. Abrogail....wants Meritxell..... to impersonate her? ...sure, seems reasonable..... for what?)

"Indeed, the first step is for you to become able to, by Alter Self and Disguise Self, impersonate my body.  Asking you to impersonate my demeanor is a bit much, of course.  Even Altered and Disguised, it is unlikely that anyone would mistake you for myself for very long at all.  But that particular mistake is not one we shall be requiring anyone to make."

"We can talk about the second step of the plan after you master the first."

"While we may perhaps end up discussing with others the possibilities for granting you a more interesting background, the matter of you learning to don my bodily form is very very secret, including from Sevar, Maillol, Subirachs, and literally everyone else besides the Most High.  Security will be instructed accordingly.  Do not simply acknowledge that order, repeat it back to me."

"I am ordered to learn to use Alter Self and Disguise Self to impersonate your body. This is secret, from everyone including Sevar and Maillol and Subirachs, and Security knows that, so if I think about it they presumably won't report that. Is there a specific lie I should tell if somehow it comes to their attention."

"Keltham seems to think Abrogail Thrune looks hotter than you do, and this, to Meritxell, is something that bothers you and leads to the thought that you could be better at seducing Keltham if only you also had my body.  I heard you thinking that, smiled mysteriously at you, and granted you the secret permission."

- nod. "May I have a hair clipping, to use as the focus for the Alter Self."

A light flick of her will, and one long strand is severed from Abrogail Thrune's head, coiled into a ring, and presented to Meritxell.

"Let us hope that this is the start of a fruitful partnership," says Abrogail Thrune.

She's not sure that the ominous wordplay helps with anything, but who knows, perhaps it might.

Meritxell takes it, very carefully, as one who is pretty sure all her dreams have come true and who is already at work on more ambitious dreams. 

It is her most fervent desire to serve very well, and she can't think of a nonstupid way to say that but she suspects that Her Infernal Majestrix knows.